Last night, volunteers in DC gathered to do People For the American Way Foundation’s part in a project that will touch hundreds of thousands nationwide.

People For the American Way Foundation partnered with the SEIU to produce educational voter ID palm cards that inform voters of what they need when they show up to cast their ballots.  They are specific to the following states (based on where there are bad voter ID laws and where we expect to see aggressive voter suppression efforts): AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, GA, IN, KS, MI, MO, NC, OH, PA, TX, and VA.

The volunteers were so excited to help distribute these materials. About 20 people crowded three different areas of People For the American Way Foundation’s DC office and didn’t rest until every activist who placed an order had what they needed. In this historic moment, their energy should give everyone hope for the future.

If you are not a palm card recipient, fear not – also available are voter ID toolkits and two-page flyers for the same states as we have palm cards for.  People For the American Way Foundation created these in collaboration with the NEA, SEIU, and other state and local partners.  We've been getting them to election officials and allies as a resource in training poll workers and people doing voter protection work.  These materials are available for you to download and print at http://site.pfaw.org/VoterID.

For more information about voting issues, please visit People For the American Way Foundation at http://www.pfaw.org or http://govote.org/. Report all voting incidents to 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683).

Samuel L. Jackson, Robert De Niro, and Rosie Perez are helping the Election Protection coalition get the word out about the Election Protection hotline — 1-866-OUR-VOTE — which voters can call through Election Day for help if they're facing voter suppression tactics or they just have questions about voting. People For the American Way Foundation is part of the EP coalition. The L.A. Times did a nice writeup of the campaign here.

Check out the PSAs below, and please spread the word about the hotline: again, the number is 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

Simply ask them if they're going to. So says Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist:

You call and ask people ahead of time, "Will you vote?" That's all. "Do you intend to vote?" That increases voting participation substantially, and you can measure it. It's a completely trivial manipulation, but saying 'Yes' to a stranger, "I will vote"...

According to Kahneman, making this sort of commitment -- even to someone they don't know -- can help motivate people to get to the polls on Election Day.

So... are you going to vote?

(via Marginal Revolution)

Reporters Without Borders released its annual Press Freedom Index today.

The good news: the United States moved up 12 points from last year. (A higher ranking indicates more press freedom.) The bad news: we're still only #36 out of the 173 countries indexed.

RWB explains in its methodology (found here as a PDF) that press freedom is measured by several factors, including the frequency with which journalists are murdered, imprisoned, or threatened; how often the news media is censored; whether those who infringe press freedoms tend to be punished for their actions; and the degree to which a country's press self-censors.

Here's RWB's explanation of why the U.S. did better this year, but still not well enough to write home about: 

The United States rose twelve places to 36th position. The release of Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Haj after six years in the Guantanamo Bay military base contributed to this improvement. Although the absence of a federal “shield law” means the confidentiality of sources is still threatened by federal courts, the number of journalists being subpoenaed or forced to reveal their sources has declined in recent months and none has been sent to prison. But the August 2007 murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey in Oakland, California, is still unpunished a year later. The way the investigation into his murder has become enmeshed in local conflicts of interest and the lack of federal judicial intervention also help to explain why the United States did not get a higher ranking. Account was also taken of the many arrests of journalists during the Democratic and Republican conventions.

(via ThinkProgress)

Break out the chilled champagne!

As you may have already heard, the Connecticut State Supreme Court today ruled that the state constitution prohibits marriage discrimination.  That means that *gasp* same-sex couples will be treated like everyone else!

It is, of course, worth pointing out one really obvious fact that the right wing will no doubt conveniently forget.

The ruling does not affect church's decisions about which marriages to perform and which not to.

Please, repeat that statement whenever you hear someone talking about how this decision "infringes on religious liberty."  (It doesn't.)  Churches will always have final say over their own ceremonies.

You can read more about the myths surrounding this decision here.

Now where's that champagne?

Glen Greenwald has a thoughtful and interesting reaction to the conviction of a man who might generously be called a “smut purveyor.”  After being found guilty of distributing pornography, the defendent, Paul Little, was sentenced to 3 years and 10 months in federal prison.  It probably doesn’t hurt to point out that the line between obscenity and art isn’t always easy to find (paging Robert Mapplethorpe!) but Greenwald takes a very different tact.  Why is it illegal to depict fake torture on film but legal to perpetrate real torture in Abu Ghraib?

So, to recap, in the Land of the Free: if you're an adult who produces a film using other consenting adults, for the entertainment of still other consenting adults, which merely depicts fictional acts of humiliation and degradation, the DOJ will prosecute you and send you to prison for years. The claim that no real pain was inflicted will be rejected; mere humiliation is enough to make you a criminal. But if government officials actually subject helpless detainees in their custody to extreme mental abuse, degradation, humiliation and even mock executions long considered "torture" in the entire civilized world, the DOJ will argue that they have acted with perfect legality and, just to be sure, Congress will hand them retroactive immunity for their conduct. That's how we prioritize criminality and arrange our value system.

Of course, consistency has never been one of the Bush administration’s strong suits.  And neither has adherence to the Constitution.

If you've been watching the magic wall on CNN, you might notice how much the hosts who use it like pointing out situations in which the Electoral College produces a tie.  How, pray tell, would we resolve such an impasse?

Luckily, the Constitution has an answer!

The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.

Via Marc Ambinder, Charlie Cook takes a look at how that might play out.

November 4 might be five weeks off, but there are a few things you can do today to help make sure you and your families' voices will be heard this Election Day.  We've rounded up our top 5 things voters should do right now in a helpful PDF document — download it here — as part of People For Foundation's Election Protection work.

Pass it on to your friends and family — and make sure they're registered to vote!

If you need specific information for your state, visit our voting rights information page or visit Vote411.org for more information.